The Mideseducation of Sam Winchester
by Indigo2831
Summary: Dean is dead, and Sam has to learn how to keep fighting without his brother. Very intense! Limp!Angsty!Grieving!Sam, Cool!Limp!Dean. This story fills in the HUGE gaps between Dean's death and his rebirth. Seaon 4 spoilers. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

Sam jolted awake with phantom ache in his chest and a lightning hot pulsing in his head. He breathed rapidly, panicked and keyed up from the nightmare. He dreamt of unseen monsters in a palatial house, tearing Dean apart as he writhed and bled and twisted in fatal agony. He dreamt of demons swathed in sweeps' clothing and a little girl in a blood-soaked party dress. It was all punctuated by sinister flashes of apocalyptic white light. From the way his head simultaneously pounded and burned, it felt like more like a vision even though he hadn't had one in more than a year. Despite how awful he felt, Sam was overjoyed. A vision meant they had a priceless glimpse into the future, a way to stop Lilith, and paramount, a way to save Dean. Sam tried to gain his bearings in the thick darkness. He tried to remember how much time they had left. He struggled out of the bed and wondered why he was dizzy; why he felt like he was swimming through molasses; why like the oldest evil had gutted him and stolen his heart. He never felt this horrible after a vision before.

He shuffled over a dirt floor and saw another bed, the rusted posters illuminated by lamplight from the adjoining room he'd never noticed before. They had to be squatting in another abandoned house. He squinted, his eyes sore and bloodshot, and could make out Dean's prone form. "Dean, hey, wake up," Sam whispered, his voice was ragged. He shook Dean's shoulder. "I had a vision, man, we can figure it out before…" Sam voice died as his hand came back slick and dark.

Screaming, Sam staggered backwards in horror as his eyes finally adjusted to the light, and he could see Dean's face was bizarrely mishapened and waxy, mouth slackened. There were jagged gashes in his neck down to the bone. His piercing green eyes clouded over with the murky gray of the dead. His body was wrapped in a sheet and he had been laid to rest ontop of a mattress that was now soaked through with congealed blood.

Sam swayed as his legs buckled and scrambled away from his brother's corpse, vomiting all over the dirt floor. It had already happened. Dean died. Sam couldn't save him. He cried and shook and raged, not knowing if it was inside of his own head or not. He felt feverish and dying, but at the same time, far too alive, because there, in the corner was his brother's body without breath, without life. Then it all came back, hitting him like the crack of a whip: Lilith possessing Ruby. The hellhounds eviscerating his brother. Sam, pinned to the wall, watching, helpless. Bobby running into find Sam huddled over Dean's body, trying to hold the gaping wounds closed, trying to save Dean even though he was clearly dead. They'd stopped at this house to give Dean a hunter's funeral of salting and burning, but Sam refused to even let Bobby touch him, snarling and snapping and hurling anything he could to keep Bobby away from his brother. When Bobby left, sobbing unashamedly, Sam merely started drinking. The floor was littered with half-empty bottles of whiskey and vodka. His pants and shirt were crusted and stiff with Dean's blood. With soiled, trembling hands, Sam snatched the nearest bottle and bought it to his mouth. He drank until he was full of alcohol, and so anesthetized that he could only stare dumbly. The sun rose and set. Sam heard the rumble of Bobby's truck and barricaded himself on the room, throwing a rickety bookcase and desk against the door, stuffing a blanket over the window.

He didn't think time could pass without Dean. It never had in his lifetime. From his earliest memories, Dean was always there, calling him a pain in the ass, but never hesitating to teach him or push him. It didn't take more than another shift in time, another minute gone, for Sam to decide. He dragged his sleeping bag from his bed and gently covered Dean with it. He brushed his matted hair before sweeping his hand over Dean's unfocused eyes to close them. "I'm going to make this right. I promise."

Dean's possessions were in a plastic grocery bag under the bed. Sam, covered in guilt and tears, sifted through the receipts and fake IDs and candy and found his beloved pearl-handled 9mm. He knew by the weight that it was already loaded. He sat down on the mattress next to Dean and rubbed his face, determined. "I'm coming to get you," he seethed.

Sam cocked the gun and put it in his mouth. He felt the cool metal between his teeth and the sting of gun powder on his tongue. A knot of urging clenched in his stomach and a voice in his head screamed, GO. He'd kill himself, and drag his brother out of hell by sheer Winchester will. He didn't need sigils or spells or magic. Sam grabbed Dean's hand beneath the sleeping bag and let his finger twitch on the trigger. Then, clear as a bell, he heard Dean's gruff, clipped tone. _Winchester 's don't quit, Sammy, we don't lie down and die. _The smell of the dirt in the air and the iron of Dean's blood jumpstarted the memory of Sam truly understanding what it meant to hunt evil and Sam's first clash with death.

_The trees of the forest were nothing more than blurred streaks of fluctuating green. Branches snapped in his face, tearing at his skin, but he ran, jumping over logs, powering through creeks, angling around boulders. _

"_Go, go, go, Sammy, keep running, don't look back." Dean warned. _

_Sam was fifteen years old and entrenched in his first-ever encounter with a gremlin. Unfortnately for Sam and Dean, gremlins weren't the small, beer-guzzling furballs like in the movies. They were vicious forest-dwelling monsters with slimy golden skin, black forked tongues and a penchant for snacking on the bones of Washington-state hikers. _

_Sam could hear Dean behind him, and knew the nineteen-year-old was a faster runner, but he put himself between the danger and Sam, like he always did. He shot over his shoulder, trying to keep the thing at bay. Sam's tripped over a web of vines, and was proppelled forward, landed roughly on his hands and knees over the rocky ground like the stupid girls in the horror movies who always died. Dean wasted not a second, snagging Sam by the collar and hauling him to his feet. "This fucker is fast, Sammy, go." _

_They ran for what felt like hours, deeper into the forest. Sam heard the gremlin darting between trees, swinging between branches. It was everywhere, over their heads, behind them, in front of them like a golden phantom. Sam's lungs felt like overfilled balloons, ready to burst and legs and feet burned inside of his hardsoled boots. He wanted to stop just for a minute. But if he slowed down for a second, his older brother would drag him by the hood of his shirt or the scruff of his neck. _

_Sam and Dean kept running, even as the lush green forest floor gave way to jagged rocks, gnarled tree roots and finally sheared off into an abrupt ravine. Even with his bobbing vision, Sam could see it ahead and hear the wild waters churning below. Sam slowed down, even as he heard the gremlin gaining ground. Dean, however, snatched Sam's sleeve, and kept running. Never missing a stride, Dean dropped his gun, hooked his arm through Sam's and they sprinted, leaping off the side of the cliff until they saw sky and the crystalline blue water below. The world, again, was a beautiful miasma of colors and smells. He wasn't scared because Dean held his hand as tight as he could, and whooped at the reckless thrill of freefall. _

_Sam's stomach rolled and his organs flattened as they plummeted through space for what felt like miles. He tightened his body, locking ankles together. Breaking the surface of the water felt like plummeting into a concrete wall followed by electricution from the shock of the cold water. Sam screamed, but water flooded his mouth and lungs. He lost Dean's hand trying to swim. The sheer force of the water propelled him against a cluster of rocks, where he felt the distinct pop of at least two ribs on his right side before the currents dragged him underwater. Pain gave way to nothingness as the frigid water numbed his muscles and stupefied his brain. With the last of his waning strength, Sam was able grab hold of a knotted cluster of tree roots before he passed out. _

_Sam woke up to gunfire and a near unbearable pain in his left side as he coughed up mouthfuls of water. Dean was crouched in front of him, firing at the gremlin. Groggily, Sam watched Dean re-load his gun. His older brother's shoulder length hair was matted with mud and there was a blood smeared on his pants. Abruptly, Dean put Sam's gun in his hands, folding his tingling fingers around the butt and making him cup it. Numbly, Sam watched him, unsure of what was even happening. Dean slapped him hard across his cheek. "Get it together, Sam. This thing won't stop until we're de…" _

_The gremlin swooped down like an eagle and punted Dean across the rocky shore. The creature wasn't enormous. It was smaller than Sam, but a treacherous tangle of muscles and spikes and claws lining its back and shoulders, spiraling from his hands and feet. Instantly sobered by Dean's unchecked screams, Sam aimed and fired three silver bullets at its head. He stood up, walking with measured steps as he fired four more. The gremlin seethed and turned at Sam, bearing eight rows of teeth and narrowing its eyes at him. The bullet wounds were nothing more than innocuous dimples on the mottled surface of its skin. _

_Sam backed up and shot again as the gremlin advanced. It moved with unearthly speed and threw Sam ten feet into the air, launching him deeper into the woods where it was a dark net of thorning vines and thick trees. Sam's flailed his arms, clawing at branches or anything to break his fall. But once again, he landed with an unforgiving force that reverberated through his entire body. He coughed and watched, dazed, as the gremlin ominously approached, evil crimson eyes idling up Sam's body like a lion eyeing a gazelle. _

_The fifteen-year-old leapt to his feet. It was so close Sam could feel its breath on his skin. It was a nefarious odor of rotten meat and anicent evil. It was a noxious, maddening scent that made Sam's skin pucker with hives and his throat snap shut. Sam clawed at his neck, wheezing and struggling for air. Frantic, he fired one-handed at the gremlin just to keep it away. Dean, magically appeared, and stabbed it in the back. He grimaced and twisted the knife, pulling upwards to completely sever the spinal cord. Gremlin hissed, making the wet, guttural noises of death. Sam winced as Dean, in that irate, feral haze he went when he killed, slit the monster's throat with his silver hunter's knife. Black, tarry blood squirted from the bastard's peculiar topaz flesh before he heaved its body aside. Dean stumbled, dropping the knife and falling to the ground, spent from fight and fall._

"_I think I'm allergic to gremlins." Sam panted._

"_I think my leg is broken." Dean countered. _

_They were quiet as the focused fog of battle faded and the reality of their predicament hit them: they were miles away from civilization, complete soaked and injured, and night, along with the temperature, was rapidly falling. Sam didn't mention that his ribs were probably broken, because he could already feel Dean's rising panic as he tried to game-plan beside him. "Okay, our best bet it to find a place to hole up for the night. We'll follow the river and find help tomorrow." Dean pushed himself up and pulled out his trusty zippo lighter. "First, we're torching this sucker." _

_The gremlin's body went up like a roman candle and the fire crackled with supernaturally purple and green sparks and an eerie blue flames. _

_Dean couldn't put any weight on his leg and Sam couldn't carry him. Although he'd started growing like a weed after leaving Indiana, he hadn't put on much weight and was nothing more than long coltish limbs and wiry muscles. At eighteen, Dean was already six-feet tall and as strong as an ox. Sam could never imagine getting that big. So, Dean forced Sam to leave him by the river's edge and scout ahead for shelter. "You be careful!" He shouted. _

_Sam cocked his head to the side. His brother was pale, filthy, and he had gremlin innerds staining his shirt, coat and pants. "You fly me off a cliff and now you want me to be careful?" _

"_Hey, saved your ass." _

_It took him hours, but Sam found a perfect place to hide: a cave with a narrowed entrance that opened into a vaulted cavern, so they could build a fire without suffocating from the smoke. It wasn't far from the river, but high enough that it ensured safety from bears and wolves. Sam helped Dean to the cave and checked the backpack to see what useable supplies they still had. The flashlights were broken, their radios smashed, the matches were soggy. All they had was their knives, two guns, ammo, and a half-eaten Snickers, thanks to Dean's sweet tooth. _

_As the cave filled with meager heat, Sam knelt down in front of Dean and cut away the ripped leg of his pants. His leg was still bleeding from a nasty wound below the knee and was terribly swollen. Sam's stomach rolled and he immediately began first aid. Ignoring Dean's protests, he took off his sweatshirt and sliced it up to make thick, absorbent bandages. He wrapped rolled up the hood, placed it over the gash and pressed down with unsympathetic pressure. Dean swallowed the pain, lips pressed together. He squeezed Sam's shoulder with bone-crushing strength, but Sam let him. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Sam whispered as he maintained pressure. _

_Sweat bloomed on Dean's forehead and upper lip and he closed his eyes as tears licked down his face. He breathed hard and fast, almost like he was in labor. Sam held pressure for a least ten minutes, giving the wound a chance to clot. Finally, he wrapped the sleeves of his sweatshirt around the leg and the thick branches Dean used to splint it. The bleeding slowed considerably, but it still oozed. Sam cursed. _

"_Dean, we have to go. This needs more than…I can give you right now. You need help before you lose too much blood." _

"_It's dark and we're lost. There's no tellin' what's out there." Dean said firmly. He took one of the spare bandages and secured it tightly around his thigh, creating a tourniquet to help stop the bleeding. _

_Sam frowned. "And if your leg falls off?" _

_Dean ran his hands over his face in frustration. "Then I'll be a hunter with a bionic leg. Sam, we stay. That's it!" _

_Irrational anger suddenly overwhelmed Sam. He had plans to study for his biology test with Marisol, a cute Mexican girl with an accent that made his toes curl. Instead he was shivering in spider-infested cave and he honestly didn't know how they were going to escape and all because John had ordered them to bag a gremlin. _

_Dean waved his hand, beckoning Sam over. "Come here. You okay?" _

"_I'm fine, banged up is all." Sam licked his lips and ignored his ribs and pounding head. There were scrapes, bumps and bruises all over him, nagging little aches that were a buzz in the back of his brain, and itchy hives on his neck and arms. He showed Dean, who tried to smother a smile. _

"_I guess this is your last gremlin, Sammy. No one will ever believe this," Dean chuckled, inspecting Sam's arms. The gleam in his eye told Sam that he would never hear the end of it. "Gremlins are going on the top of my Shit List. Right next to witches and that scary-ass co-ed in Texas ." _

"_She's human. We don't off humans." Sam chuckled stiffly as he gingerly elevated Dean's leg._

_Dean scratched his cheek and used a scrap of fabric and a puddle of water to scrub the dirt off his face. "I think she was a harpie. We can totally kill those, right?" _

"_Not every woman who turns you down is a harpie, Dean." _

_Dean narrowed his eyes and glared at his brother traiteriously. "I think you might be one too." _

_Sam laughed and handed Dean the waterlogged, half-eaten Snickers. "Peace offering?"_

"_Bitch." Dean took it like it was a prize. _

"_Jerk."_

_Night fell. Cold seeped in through the rocks. Wind blew in through the narrowed opening of the cave. They ran out of brush to burn. Neither of them were strong enough to venture out into the woods to get more, so burned the duffel bag and Dean's tee-shirt ("Layers, brother, that's why I wear layers.") and coupled together for body heat ("The only reason you're touching me is so you don't freeze to death, you anorexic motherfucker"). Gremlin blood, apparently, was incredibly flammable and the small fire burned brighter and longer than it ever would with wet twigs and petrified wood. Dean, gun in his hand, slept like the dead and shivered the entire night. He was weak from the blood loss, feverish from the break, and dehydrated from nearly a day without water. Sam tried to watch over him, but wasn't doing any better. He'd been exhausted and beaten after hunts before, but this was frighteningly different. He felt brittle and empty and a bit delirious from the ever-increasing pain in his ribs. _

_Throughout his life, he heard about hunters dying from misinformation or bad luck or their own stupidity. The men and women that were the only family Sam and Dean ever had would vanish and leave the tall tales of their terrible deaths in their wake. They were warriors, grizzled and heroic, but they were still human and monumentally mismatched against evil. Sam realized years ago, that he'd always walked around holding his breathe, preparing for the day his father never came home. They'd gone into this hunt completely blind; didn't know that gremlins were large, elusive creatures who moved faster a wild animal and were immune to silver bullets. Now, he wondered if they were going to become one of those cautionary tales hunters told each other over beers and dark faces. He wondered if he'd die, covered with Dean's jacket, his head on his brother's shoulder, hungry and thirsty and aching. He wondered if his life would end without having kissed Marisol or trying sushi or seeing the Lincoln Memorial. As his eyes rolled back and the darkness pulled him under again, like a soft warm current, Sam wondered if he'd ever wake up again. _

_When he did, he was coughing so hard his teeth rattled and he nearly passed out from the pressure in his side. _

"_Whoa, Sammy, whoa." Dean patted his leg. His voice was a little more than a feeble whisper. _

_Sam's hands wrapped around his ribs as if he could keep them from moving as he coughed._

"_Are you hurt?!" Dean yelled, tugging at Sam's hands. "You said you were fine! You're such a liar." _

"_How fine can you be after jumping off a fifty-foot cliff?" Sam croaked. _

_He opened his eyes and caught Dean's face in the blue buzz of twilight. The gremlin fueled fire still burned merrily._

"_Where?" Dean asked. When Sam didn't answer immediately Dean shook him again and he groaned. "I got nothin' but time, Sam. Where?" _

_Dean hovered over him, staring at him with that ornery determined scowl that usually made girls spread their legs. _

"_Side," he mumbled in defeat. _

"_Good boy. Here we go," he gently rolled his black tee-shirt shirt up. It was stuck to the skin. Sam whimpered when Dean tugged it free. "Jesus Christ, Sammy." Dean hissed. _

_Sam hadn't bothered to look at his ribs. Blearily, he glanced down and saw the purplish-black band over his middle ribs he expected; but there was a serious of deep gashes and shallow scrapes that were smeared with dark dried blood. They were swollen and red and oozing. Dean pushed over the melon-sized blackish bruise, over the bumps of his broken ribs. Sam screamed as stars streaked passed his eyes. Dean's usual poker-face melted into one of grim concern and caged panic. "Why the hell didn't you say something?"_

"_It wasn't that bad before. I was worried about you." _

_Adrenaline is a tricky thing. It could mask pain and heighten strength. It was the best weapon a hunter had, if they knew how to use it. But it could easily get hunters killed._

"_And now this could be infected." Dean felt his forehead and neck. Sam knew he couldn't distinguish Sam's fever from his own. _

"_How bad does it hurt?"_

"_It's bad," Sam begrudginly admitted. He'd never felt pain like this before, and that scared him. _

_Dean uncocked his gun and tucked it in the back of his pants. He pulled up his hood and pocketed his knife. "Put my coat on, let's go."_

_Sam didn't have the strength to lift his arms. "Dean, I can't." _

"_Like hell you can't." _

_Sam shook his head. He was crying. "Dean, please…" There were tears in his eyes, and he knew he sounded pathetic and pitiable, but he couldn't hide it anymore. He was so tired. His entire body hurt. Maybe the gremlin had poisoned him. Maybe a rib had punctured something. "You can go.." he coughed raggedly, "faster without me."_

"_No." _

"_Something's wrong, Dean. And I can't…"_ _His eyes slipped closed on their own, energy fading._

"_SAM! Sammy, look at me." Dean grabbed Sam's chin and slapped his cheek until he opened his eyes. "You're getting your scrawny ass up even if I have to light it on fire. Winchesters don't quit, Sammy, we don't lie down and die. If I leave you here, what do you think will happen?"_

_Sam didn't know. The weak, aching, nauseous part of him didn't care. _

"_Look, I…know your life sucks. I know you're a kid and you should be bangin' that adorable senorita you've been blabbing about or, I dunno, going to the sock-hop, but this is all you got, Sam. This is your hand; I need you to play it." Dean dropped his head and cleared his throat. When he spoke again, he used that deeper, gruff voice that he only used with other hunters, men he respected. "And I need your help. I can't make it out of here on my own. If you don't help me, neither of us will survive," he confessed. Sam focused on Dean's eyes, and how they flashed with the unvarnished truth. "And then I won't be able to tell anyone that your pansy ass is allergic to gremlins. Are you going to deny me that as your big brother?" Dean smiled, and it was soft and patient. _

_Sam sniffled, "only if you leave out the part where I cried." _

_Dean wiped the tears off his face. "Done." _

_Dean helped Sam into the vintage leather jacket he'd never let him wear. Sam flipped up the collar and smelled the soft leather. Dean shifted on the ground until he was on Sam's right side and they draped their arms around each other's necks. Together, they pushed and swore until their were on their feet, swaying, but standing as one. The Brothers Winchester tediously tracked down to the river and followed the uneven banks as the sun began to rise. It took them ten grueling hours to venture four miles to a road where a state trooper working a speed trap found two beaten bloody kids and drove them down to the county hospital. It was that moment that Sam truly realized how much they needed each other; that Dean wasn't blind to the internal battle that was building inside of him; that he understood. With Dean by his side, he could do anything—take the leap, take the plunge, take the pain._

Sam could hear Dean's voice ebbing from somewhere inside of him. His lips were wrapped around the gun and the trigger was half pulled. He remembered how in the back of that police car, after walking miles in utter agony, Sam felt like he could bend steal or move mountains because of what Dean pushed him to do. _Take the pain._ Sam cried out--a strangled, mournful sound--before he let the gun fall on the floor at his feet. He turned to Dean and laid his head on his chest. There was no warmth. No heartbeat. There weren't many things Sam could do for him anymore. He'd failed him over and over in life, but he wouldn't in death. He'd get him back. He went to three crossroads between Pontiac, Illinois and South Dakota, trying to deal, but the demons giddily refused as if Dean's death was the first step in some grand plot.

Devastated, Sam returned to Pontiac. Dean, a man who saved thousands of lives, was buried at dawn on a Tuesday morning in an unmarked, shallow grave Sam dug that was conveniently close to a main road. He was entombed in a coffin Bobby built and painted every protective sigil he could find in invisible ink thinned with holy water. Sam covered the grave with straw and fashioned a makeshift cross. He wasn't ready to leave Pontiac yet, so they stayed. Every morning, Sam walked the miles to the grave and lay down. He'd been through so much with Dean over the years, he didn't know how to function without his older brother at his side. After a week, Sam sat up. Electrical storms lit up the sky in the weeks following Lilith's departure, but the dark shroud of thunderclounds gave way as the rays of the sun threaded through the clouds. It wasn't a beauitful, inspiring sight. It meant Lilith's trail was growing cold. Sam turned to Dean's grave and pressed his head against the ground.

"Give me the strength to go."

Sam waited and prayed and hoped with every molecule in his body that something would happen. That the wind would pick up or a bird would chirp or a hot girl would walk by. He waited for hours, but nothing happened. Sam knew it was because Dean wasn't in Heaven. His soul, the very essence of him, was in Hell and being tortured in ways Sam couldn't even fathom. Sam gripped the ground, fists in the dirt and he pushed himself up, leaning on no one.

When Jess and the entire safe, fantastically normal life he'd planned for himself burned to ashes in the fire, he could barely breathe, because his dream—the one with the wedding and the wife; the carpools and the court dates—was gone. He was left with anger, revenge and Dean. But Sam had faith and he believed she was in Heaven with his mother, contented in ways the living weren't.

But Sam didn't have that modicum of comfort anymore. The only after-life he was certain about was Hell. His father had been there, and now Dean was, roasting and writhing.

It was excruciating to find the strength to turn around and face his life without his brother and best friend, but Sam welcomed the pain. He deserved it, after all. He looped Dean's pendant around his neck, got into the Impala and drove away, ready to take the plunge.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: I really appreciate the alerting and the reviews! Also, the flashback in this chapter is a little long, but it was something I've always wanted to write/see the boys deal with. Let me know what you think! Hee!

Lilith was untrackable. Demons weren't talking, and neither were the hunters. Sam went back to Bobby's and climbed inside of a bottle. He wasn't sure if he was welcome, but Bobby merely unpacked his things in the room he always slept in and put the keys to the Impala on the rack next to his own. Sam stayed because he knew he knew he would kill himself anywhere else, and knew Bobby would watch him. They passed like ghosts in his South Dakota compound, drinking enough to maintain the blanket numbness that came with intoxication. It didn't kill the pain, but smothered it, pushing it down to a radiating throb.

One hot, June day, Bobby came in Sam's room. The younger man was tracing designs in the dust on the windowsill. Sam hadn't showered in a week, hadn't shaved in two, and hadn't spoken since they buried Dean. Bobby's clothes were ironed. His beard was trimmed. He smelled of toothpaste and aftershave. Wordlessly, he hauled Sam off the floor and shoved him into the shower with his clothes on. Sam glared at him as the warm water soaked through his clothes. Bobby's movements were jerky and deliberate like he was prepared for a fight, but his eyes were red-rimmed and incredibly sad.

"We're going out for a good meal. One that ain't 80 proof." He announced. Bobby took the bottle from him. "Get cleaned up." It took much energy to protest, so he caught the bar of soap Bobby tossed to him and wiggled out of his shirt.

Sam managed to shower and shave his thick beard without thinking too hard. He put on the clothes Bobby had laid out for him and even brushed his hair. He walked out into the kitchen that Bobby cleaned. He'd piled the dozens of liquor bottles in the recycling bin, washed all of the dishes, and even put a fucking bowl of fruit on the table.

Bobby stuffed his hands in his pockets when Sam eyed him accusingly. "I'm not makin' you do anything you ain't ready for, but if I let this take hold of me, it won't let go, Sam. This isn't what Dean wanted."

Without Dean, the world was just a bitter display of smiling, ignorant faces that Sam didn't understand and didn't want to waste his time saving. Dean should have been revered as a king or a saint, but instead he was buried illegally, rotting in a shoddy pine box. He regarded Bobby, quietly, and wondered when they got so disconnected, and why it made him angry.

Bobby crossed his arms over his chest. "Got nothin' to say, Sam? It's been weeks. I know you're in there."

Sam rolled his lips into this mouth in an obstinate refusal.

Bobby's lips twitched like he wanted to smile but didn't know how. "You are one stubborn sonofabitch, you know that?" He clapped Sam on the back and wrestled him into a hug. Sam let him, but his arms dangled at his sides. "It's okay to let it get better, kid."

Bobby held on, and Sam let him as long as he could stand to be touched, then wrenched away when the grief started to seep out, overpowering his inebriation. Sam handed Bobby the keys to the Impala. Sam sat in the passenger seat, closed his eyes, and pretended Dean was driving.

They ate at a surprisingly nice steakhouse and were served by a waitress who knew Bobby by name. Bobby ordered Sam a rib-eye that came on a sizzling plate with lots of onions, peppers and butter. It looked good, but tasted like cardboard. Sam ate it, though, to appease Bobby. Bobby talked through the entire meal about his wife, the life he had before he was a hunter, the bizarre lack of demonic omens, even his hobby of metalwork. Sam half-listened, but mostly stared out the window. It was a yellow Dakota day where the heat of the summer dried up the humidity and the blowing breeze ruffled the trees and made the air smell green. It was the type of day Dean would have loved. Cotton hummed passed the window and dotted the black paint of the Impala. _The only snow I like is cottonwood. Summer snow, Sammy, that's better than this winter shit._ Goosebumps bloomed over Sam's arms as Dean's voice rang again out in his head like a divine bell, dragging Sam into the memory.

"_The only snow I like is cottonwood. Summer snow, Sammy, that's better than this winter shit." He leaned forward to wipe the frost off the windshield of the Impala. Her forty-year old heater was unmatched against a Northern Michigan cold. _

_Dean grumbled as he gripped the wheel of the Impala with both hands, trying to navigate through the worst snowstorm Sam had ever seen. The winter sky glowed a pale pink, churning out crisp white snow. The unplowed roads held about a foot of it that clogged the undercarriage of the Impala and made the heavy boat of a car skid and slip. They'd already pushed it out of a ditch once. _

_They had just celebrated Christmas and Dean had the debaucherous idea to head up to Canada and ring in his last New Year blazed on infamously strong Canadian grass. _

"_Dean…" Sam started cautiously. _

"_Shuddup, Sam," Dean took his hand off the wheel long enough to punch him in the thigh. "I'm pulling over as soon as I see any kind of motel. My baby doesn't need to be out in this weather." Dean patted the steering wheel lovingly. _

_Sam grinned from the passenger seat. "That's so sweet of you, but I'm okay. I have a coat." _

"_Sorry, Sammy, you're not my type. I only like 'em with high beams and lots o' horsepower," Dean boasted. _

_Sam made a disgusted face. "I know you're not talking about the car." _

_They bickered and teased each other for thirteen treacherous miles until they turned into the Tundra Inn, a cheesy winter-themed motel that boasted "roasty-toasty heat" and "all-you-can-drink cocoa." They checked into the biggest room they had, which was an explosion of blues (navy blue bedspreads, powder blue lamps, electric blue shag), icicle lights and frightening Jack Frosts on the light switches and shower curtains. _

_They darted outside, into the howling wind and subzero temperatures, for a snowball fight--a Winchester tradition when they were kids. The years in California greatly diminished Sam's snowball-making skills, but his long legs helped him navigate in the two feet of snow that covered the ground. It was invigorating and incredibly stupid to tramp around in a blizzard, but Sam didn't care. He watched Dean, hollering in the cold, red in the face, and laughing exuberently, like he did when he was nine, and he tried to burn the memory in his brain, file it away, so he could remember what Dean wore, the feel of the ice on his face, the steam rising off the Impala, if Dean died. _

_Dean hit him square in the face with a snowball. Sam sputtered, blinking the ice of his eyes and tackled Dean to the ground. He scooped the snow around Dean, pushing it down his coat, laughing the entire time. _

"_You're such a bitch. I have snow in places snow should never be!" _

_Sam heaved more snow at him and flopped on his back. The sky was darker, a black slate against comets of white. _

"_It's pretty," Dean admitted like he could hear Sam's thoughts. "It'd be prettier if I was stoned, but it'll do." _

_Sam chuckled and climbed to his feet. "I'm going in. I can't feel…anything," his nose was numb and he really wished he had a hat. _

_Dean followed him. "There's a bucket of cocoa with my name on it." _

_Sam and Dean passed a woman on the way back to the room. She was short and had full, round face wearing nothing but a gray sweatshirt and enough eyeliner and black lipstick to paint the Impala. Her long black hair was a flat black striped with purple and blue from cheap hair dye. Sam didn't miss the roundness of her belly, but Dean wa too busy leering at her cleavage to notice. Dean took his time unlocking the door to the room, making sure she wasn't outside for long. Months away from his own death, Dean was still protective of strangers. She tried to open the door to her room, right next to theirs, but the it wouldn't budge. _

"_Hey, Paul Bunyan, little help?" _

_Dean snorted behind him and opened his own door. "That one is all yours, Sammy." _

"_Too much horsepower?" Sam called over his shoulder. _

_He smiled at the girl as she handed him the keys. "Nice weather, huh?" _

"_Downright tropical. No offense but the door…" _

"_Oh yeah, sure." Sam unlocked it and heaved his body against the door. The ice in the jam splintered and it popped open. "There ya go." _

_The woman bounded into the room without a word of gratitude. Her teeth were chattered and she had no luggage. Sam's bleeding heart got the better of him and he took off his coat and tossed it on the bed. "Happy New Year." _

_She looked at him with shadowed eyes that were pale gray in disbelief as she immediately pulled it on. "Thanks." _

_Sam and Dean drank their weight in cocoa, feasting on the donuts from the last gas station and rang in the new year with a whiskey toast, forced smiles and loaded silence. They went to bed, warm and sated by sugar. Hours later, something jerked Sam into consciousness. His heart pounded and he reached under his pillow to grip his switchblade. Dean snored in his bed, cocooned in all of the extra blankets he'd won in poker. The television was a quiet drone in the background. The snow still raged outside. Sam heard muffled grunts, the tell-tale curl of pain through the thin walls. He climbed out of bed, cursing at the chill on the floor and crossed the blue shag. He went into the bathroom and listened. When he heard it again, it echoed off the checkered blue tile. Sam darted to the door and stuffed his feet into his boots. _

"_Sam…" Dean called as a warning. He heard the click of him cocking his gun beneath the covers. _

_Sam pulled his own gun out from under his pillow. "Listen." _

_She cried out again. Dean's green eyes widened. "Oh." Dean rolled out of bed and dressed quickly. _

_They headed outside and were clobbered by arctic wind and stinging snow. "Son of a bitch!" Sam flipped up the hood of his sweatshirt and trampled through the tornadoes of snowflakes. The Jack Frost thermometer read -14 degrees. _

_He rapped on the door with a closed fist, gun at the ready. "It's…um, Paul Bunyan," Sam frowned. Dean seemed amused. "You okay?" _

_There was no answer. Dean tried to steal a glance into the room through the window, but the shades were drawn. The girl inside remained silent, and Dean motioned that they just should go back to bed. When she screamed again, he didn't hesitate to kick in the door and both of them, guns cocked, powered inside. Neither Winchester were prepared for what they discovered. The young woman was crouched in the powder blue bathtub, a coiled belt between her teeth, red-faced and drenched with sweat. Her pants were tossed over the toilet. The crimson of blood smeared on the sides of the tub and the walls. Her hands were cupped around the same round belly Sam noticed earlier, the belly he'd written off as freshman fifteen. _

_She panted between clenched teeth and shielded her pregnant belly from the weapons. _

"_W-what's wrong?" Sam stammered, at the same time Dean hollered, "WE'RE COPS!" _

_He set his gun down on the dresser. His eyes were wide and he seemed unsure of what to do. He seemed…scared. _

"_You can't be that stupid," the girl scowled at Sam's question. _

_Sam turned to his brother. "Dean...she needs help." _

_Dean's eyes flared to a comical size. "Unless her name is Rosemary, we can't help her!" He snapped in a whisper. _

_She clutched her stomach over the thin tee shirt and as another wave of pain attacked. Dean shoved Sam towards the bathroom, flailing his arms and backing away. Sam cursed under his breath and inched closer. Her legs buckled and Sam sprang forward. He supported her, arm around her waist, hand on her belly. Sam gasped in horrified awe as her belly hardened and tightened, quite literally contracting beneath his fingers. "Holy..." _

_Dean stood in the threshold, hand over his eyes. Sam threw a bar of soap at him. It smacked it on the shoulder and he took his hand away, wincing. "Hello...go get help! Go find ANYONE!" _

_She was having her baby alone in a dirty bathtub, and from the pregnancy books scattered on the floor, it looked like she planned it that way. The heavy make-up had masked her young, delicate features. She couldn't have been more than sixteen. _

"_I thought you guys were cops..." _

"_Uh, yeah, but we're definitely not trained for this. You need real help." _

_The girl panted raggedly. "I need this thing out of me!" _

_She collapsed on the edge of the tub, head in her hands, and that's when Sam noticed she wasn't wearing any underwear. He slapped a hand over his eyes when he saw the pink between her legs rimmed with hair. _

_The girl snorted a hoarse laugh, her pain seemingly gone. "You two act like you've never seen a naked girl before…" she trailed off. "Wait, have you? Is that guy your boyfriend?" _

_Sam cocked his head over his shoulder. "He's my brother." _

"_Oh, okay. What's your name?" _

"_I'm Sam, the other guy is Dean." _

_Dean poked his head in the bathroom. Dean had swapped his short-lived panic for giddiness. "I went to the front desk. Apparently this happens a lot at the wonderful Tundra Inn, and they sent someone down the hill to get the Earl, the vet, because of the storm, it may take some time." _

"_Vet?" _

"_Apparently, he's a midwife too. Smalltown, America, there's nothing like it." _

"_What the hell do we do until then?" _

_Dean's eyes were laughing. "Boil some water and rip up some sheets? The lady at the desk said this can take hours and hours." _

_She whimpered. "Fantastic." _

_He craned his neck to peer into the bathroom. "What's your name, sugar?" _

"_Maribelle, Mary," she said. _

_Sam and Dean shared a wistful glance. "Well, Mary," Dean said. "Why don't we get you out of that tub and start waiting, huh?" _

_Dean swept Mary into his arms without a word. He would never admit it, but he loved rescuing the damsel. Mary didn't seem to mind either. Her pain was gone, and she was clearly thrilled with Dean's manly strength and easy charm. Sam rolled his eyes as Dean ate up the attention. That was, until Mary's water broke, a steady trickle on Dean's stocking feet. Mary promptly climbed into bed and pulled the covers over her face, mortified. _

_Sam laughed until his stomach ached. _

_Dean blinked, trying to maintain composure. "I've been covered in way worse, Mary. Trust me." _

_Sam turned on the television for noise, and they made awkward small talk, waiting for whatever happened next. Sam breezed through one of the pregnancy books on the floor, staring slack mouthed at the pictures and diagrams. Dean was subtly trying to pull information out of the young teen. Mary was seventeen. She refused to say where she was from, but said she was on her way to visit her child's father when the storm hit. Sam didn't even have to look at her face to know she was lying. _

_Less than ten minutes after getting settled on the bed, the contractions hit again one on top of the other and didn't stop. Sam and Dean watched, horrified and helpless. Her body trembled and bucked against the labor pains. She was vicious and mean, a side-effect of the pain they knew all too well. She threw the clock radio at Dean when he refused give her a drink from his flask. She writhed in the bed, biting the pillow, mewing and swearing. It sounded feral and primal, a combination of the cackle of a witch and the wail of a banshee. If Sam hadn't known better, he would have thought she was possessed. _

_Dean risked a step away from the bed when Mary buried her face under the pillows. She cried in desperate hiccups. _

"_What is taking them so long?" Sam asked, flailing his long arms. "Demons, I can handle. But this? We can't do this! We shouldn't do this!" _

"_I want to be a thousand miles from this! I'm two seconds away from dousing her with holy water!" Dean rubbed his stomach. "And this is like birth control on acid. I'm ordering condoms in bulk, man," Dean babbled.__ "Is labor contagious because I'm cramping like you wouldn't believe!"_

_Sam glowered at Dean, and then took two shots from his flask. "How is it that you're more freaked out than HER?" _

_Mary shrieked, yanking Dean's arm so hard, he tipped over, sagging between the nightstand on the bed. "I'm here. I'm here." _

_Mary drew in a panicked breath as she kicked the covers off, shamelessly pulling up her legs. She was pushing, instinctively bearing down. _

_Dean's instantaneously paled, and tried to push Mary's legs closed. "None of that, honey. Hold it in! Earl's not here yet!" _

_The two brothers had fought monsters and demons, been tortured by petty gods, shot by petty thieves and killed by evil, but this was the most terrifying thing they'd ever faced. _

_She ignored him, and kept pushing. "LOOK!" She hollered. "LOOKLOOKLOOK!" _

_Dean shoved Sam to the foot of the bed, and sat down next to Mary. "I want no parts of dilation." _

_Sam chanced a glance between her legs and couldn't believe what he saw. The impossible stretching and sliding of flesh and muscle giving way to a patch of alabaster skin and a twist of matted dark hair. His heart raced and his palms sweat as it became as real as it was breathtaking. She was going to give birth to another person, and there was no one else to help. He whisked off his sweatshirt and climbed on the bed. "I can see it, Mary. It's right there." _

"_It is?" She whimpered. "You better not be lying!" _

_Dean snuck a peek, green eyes inching over the bumps of her knees. "He's not lying, Mary. You can do this, we're all going to do this, okay?" He sobered, just as Sam had, and wrapped his arms around her, whispering in her ear. He galvanized her to action in a way only he could_

_The delivery was the most intense experience of Sam's life. It wasn't loud, but a deafeningly quiet, punctuated by Mary's focused breathing. It was the exact opposite of what Sam and Dean did as hunters. They dealt ghosts and spirits, the messy aftermath of death. They killed monsters intent on mayhem. The burned the corpses of ghosts. But a birth was the giving of life and beginning of a person. It was why they fought and why they kept going after all they'd lost and all they'd seen. The entire room was charged with an inexplicable energy that wasn't supernatural at all, but the essence of what it was to be human, and it all came from the seventeen year old girl who wanted her baby born. _

_The baby eased out, head first, eyes open. Sam placed his hand around the base, unsure of what to do. Mary was exhausted, head lulling on the pillow, eyes fluttering closed. "Mary, come on. You have to finish this." Dean said, shaking her roughly. _

"_I can''t. Buurns!" _

_Dean lifted her shoulders off the pillows until she was sitting up, pressed against the shifting shape of her stomach and slid behind her. "Look, Mary, look!" He put her hands between her legs, fingers brushing against her baby's head. _

_Mary's eyes cleared, the fog was gone, and the fight emerged. She was silent, doing the business of mothers, and pushed so hard her face flushed a dark crimson. She didn't stop until the shoulders slid free and there was was a tiny life, red and slippery in Sam's hands. Umbilical cord still attached, he passed the baby, slick with afterbirth and blood, over to Mary, who could only stare at her daughter in complete awe as Dean wrapped her in the clean Metallica tee shirt he'd swiped from his hotel room._

_Dean laughed but it sounded strangely watery like he was about to cry. "Look at what you did." _

_Sam wiped his eyes with his sleeves and jumped when the door flew open, comets of snow blew into the room. A man with a bushy gray beard and a lime green snow suit stretched over his own rounded belly entered the room. _

_Dean and Sam glared at the man who could only be the town midwife. "YOU'RE FREAKIN' LATE!" They barked in unison. _

_They bolted at the mention of placenta. Shell-shocked and happy, Sam and Dean sat on their beds and listened to the baby cry. _

_** _

_Mary and her baby girl were taken to the hospital by the sheriff. She called to thank them, and tell them that the baby's name was Demi. And for once, Sam and Dean thought they got to see a happy ending. _

_The New Year's storm produced a record thirty-one inches of snow and stranded them at the Tundra Inn. They slept, played cards, watched crappy television and overdosed on the free cocoa spiked with whiskey. The second time Sam woke up to crying, it was coupled with a blast of cold air. He turned around to see Dean inching into the room, clutching the coat Sam had given Mary to this chest. Sam stared dumbly at the bundle of wool and cotton, and incoherently wondered why it was crying. _

"_Mary bolted." Dean announced, kicking the door shut. "And I know she's a new mom and all, but that's not excuse to leave your kid behind."_

"_Wha…" Sam rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as Dean handed him the baby. _

_Little Demi was impossibly small with her mother's gray eyes and dark hair. She nearly fit in the palm of Sam's hand. He cradled her gently, but was stricken with just how big he really was. He freed her from his jacket. _

"_She was planning this all along, Sam," Dean said, setting down the bag of supplies he'd swiped from the room. "She came here to have her baby and leave it somewhere…God only knows what else. I heard her crying, so I stopped by to say hello. The door was unlocked and there just was in the middle of the bed screaming her head off." _

"_What do we do now? Strap a car seat in the Impala?" Sam wondered, sarcastic. He sighed, realizing he'd been waiting for something else to happen. _

"_Yeah, Sammy, right next to the ammo and the rock salt. I have guns that weigh more than her." _

_Sam raked his fingers through his hair. "Kidding, Dean." _

"_We're gonna call the police…as soon as the roads are safe." He said hesitantly._

"_She's gonna end up in the system, Dean." _

"_That's a hell of a lot better than being anywhere near us, Sam. We're literally walking curses. I mean, I feel like I shouldn't even touch her." _

_Sam laughed. "Um, duh! There's no way I'd ever suggest we keep her. I just…I just wanted this to end…without any trauma, ya know? Not with an abandoned kid in some orphanage." _

"_Me too." Dean said as he studied the infant's face. "That's why I'm hoping—against all that I know—that Mary will come back." _

_** _

_It was profoundly weird to see Dean, a self-proclaimed killer, handle a baby with such ease. While Sam felt like poor Demi would shatter if he held her too long, Dean had an eerie paternal peace about him as he changed her diaper, bathed her in the sink and fed her without a complaint. If Sam didn't know better, he'd thought Dean didn't rush to call the authorities because he'd grown attached to the child. _

_Dean passed her to Sam. "Take her, you lazy sonofabitch." _

"_Um...nah." _

_Dean placed her into his arms anyway. "I need to pee and I'd like to have both hands this time. And I'm tired of doing all the work." _

"_You're the one who wanted kids!" Sam squawked with a grin that fell as soon as Demi was in his arms._

_Dean rolled his eyes, "So when did my life turn into 'Two Men and a Baby?' I'm not singin' Goodnight Sweetheart." He declared. _

_He held her and his breath. "I feel like Lenny, or something." _

"_You just now feel like that, Jumbo?" He teased before he closed the door. _

_Sam stood in the middle of the room, unsure of what to do. He had avoided holding her for almost two days. _

_Dean came out of the bathroom and did an actual double-take at his brother who was still in the same position he left him in. He headed to the dresser and pulled out a drawer. That he lined with Sam's coat and placed two rolled up towels on either side. _

"_What on heck are you doing?" _

"_Makin' a crib," Dean replied as if it was obvious. He'd slept with Demi on his chest for the past two nights, afraid she wouldn't be warm enough on her own. "I'm getting some real sleep."_

_Sam chuckled. "Dean, she's a baby, not a pair of socks. She can't sleep in a drawer!" _

_Dean set the drawer on the bed. "Why not? You did." _

"_What?!" _

_His brother smiled, nostalgic. "After the fire, we moved around a lot to friend's houses, then hotels…then motels, and Dad would hunker you down in a drawer just like this. You liked it." Dean said. "When you were older, you'd climb in there to sleep on your own. With your blankie." _

_Sam was baffled. "I never stood a chance at being normal, did I?" _

"_Not a shot in hell, bucko. It was easier back then when you were a baby, and we could just cart you around and stick you in a drawer. Now you're all huge and broody." _

_Sam bit his tongue and focused on the baby. She was all soft skin and smelled of powder. She looked angelic in her white nightgown and yellow blanket. She was perfect. She was possibility. Her placid face crumpled and her little squeaks rolled into a full-blown, urgent cry. Sam swayed back and forth, looking at Dean expectantly. _

_Dean handed him a bottle of milk he'd warmed in the sink. "You want to do the honors?" _

_He took it without a word and swelled with pride when Demi suckled hungrily. "Jess wanted kids," Sam confessed. _

"_She seemed like the type." Dean said. His voice always got soft and cautious when Sam talked about Jess. It was the only time Dean seemed scared to say the wrong thing, like he was afraid, even three years later, that Sam would fall apart. _

"_Two boys and a girl named Sam," he recited with a smile. There was always an ache that came with the memory, a lingering pain that would always be there, but now he feel the good with the bad; the love coupled with the grief. "I just wanted them to look like her." _

"_You and the rest of the world." He teased. "See you've held her a whole twenty minutes and she's not broken yet." _

_Sam glanced down at Demi, and brushed a finger over her nose. She'd finished the bottle and looked at him, sleepy and sated. "Babies freak me out," Sam whispered. He knew he was slightly less than human, tainted with demon blood, and he ridiculously wondered if she could be poisoned just by touch._

"_Oh, you just offended tiny feelings, you big meanie. You have to burp her, Sam." _

"_You mean the thing where you beat her on the back? Absolutely not." _

_Dean shook his head. "Sammy is a giant wussy. He can fight the Big Bad, but he's terrified of a seven-pound human," he cooed, taking her from him. He sat down on the bed and gingerly patted her back._

_Sam excused himself to the bathroom. It was filled with drying baby blankets and the sink was lined with bottles and nipples instead of bullets and bloody clothes. Sam washed his hands. When he opened the door, Sam was halted at the sight of Dean lying on the bed, propped up on an elbow. Demi rested beside him, protected that the long wave of his body. He watched her with such fascination. The baby, merely days old, was content and awake. Her legs were drawn up to her tummy, thumb in her mouth. Dean sang softly, some funked out version of an Aerosmith song, punctuated by Demi's adorable sucking noises. It hit him, harsher than a punch, more merciless than a stabwound. Dean would never be a father. Dean would never grow old. Dean was going to die in less than five months. Demi's birth had done what nothing else had: it let them hope and it let them forget. _

_Sam was suddenly nauseous. He nudged the bathroom door shout with his toe and dove for the toilet, gagging and choking on the realization. Sam reached a long arm out to turn on the water, so Dean wouldn't hear him. _

"_Sammy…you alright?" _

_Sam dry-heaved and was oddly thankful he rarely had an appetite. He was splashing water on his face, rinsing his mouth when Dean opened the door. "Did you fall in? What's up?" _

"_Nothing," Sam lied. "I'm fine. Tired." _

_Dean was incredulous, crossing his arms over his chest. "Exhausted from the nine minutes of baby-holding? You're getting old, Sammy." _

"_Not as old as you, gramps." Sam forced a smile, but it felt crooked and rigid. _

"_You are such a terrible liar." _

"_You left the baby on the bed!" Sam said, desperately trying to change the subject. "She could fall off!" _

_Dean laughed. "She's, like, 50 hours old, she's fine." _

"_Why are you so good with her?" _

"_I took care of you, moron. From the time Mom brought you home, I just wanted to help. Then…after the fire, Dad wasn't exactly all there for a long time, so I did what I could…like Mom taught me." _

_Sam blinked and was honestly surprised. "I never thought about it." _

_Dean touched Demi's feet and watched as she drifted off to sleep on her own. His demeanor shifted and darkened. Sam could see the gloom in his eyes. "I know you get angry and upset, when I…protect you. I know you think it's unfair and selfish, and you blame yourself, but I remember when you fit in a drawer, Sam. I remember you when you were this small, and I can't stop. I don't want to." _

_Sam set his jaw and regarded Dean with mounting anger he couldn't hide nor control. His heart pumped fury and rage through his system, and he was so completely irate, that he could feel the heat in his fingertips and behind his eyes. Sam flew off the bed and out into the cold, stumbling into the shin-high snow and wind. His brother was forfeiting his life for Sam's, and nothing Sam did would show Dean how recklessly pathetic it was. And Sam couldn't even stomach the idea of life without his brother, so he fumed, wishing he had something to kill. He clenched and unclenched his fists and saw the steam rising off his bare skin in the cold. Sam turned around and punched the frozen wood of the wall behind him. The pain bloomed in his hand, like firecrackers igniting, and it felt like liberation. He did it again, and relished the cathartic crash of the ice and bone. _

_He kept going until his vision sparked and he reeled backwards from a blow to the stomach. The air whooshed out of his lungs and he dropped to the pavement, gasping for air. _

"_What the hell are you doing?!" Dean hollered as Sam coughed on the pavement. _

"_It was either the wall or the car, Dean. Go back to the baby." _

"_She's sleeping. And next time hit the car I don't love the damn thing that much." Dean hoisted Sam off the ground and sat him on the hood of the Impala. He snatched Sam's hand, swollen and skin torn at the knuckles, by the wrist, inspecting his hand. Sam barely felt it. "If it's broken AGAIN, you stupid motherfucker..." _

_Sam shoved Dean into the snow. "Get off me!" He paced back and forth, out of control. _

"_You're not allowed to do this! You have to stop tearing yourself apart." _

"_I'm not allowed to…Dean, what exactly do you think is going to happen when you're dead? You think I'm going to throw a parade? You think I'm going to be OKAY?" _

_Dean scooped up the snow, and piled it into Sam's palm. "I'm a selfish bastard, but I don't care. The deal is done, Sam." _

_Sam clenched his hand to keep from hitting his brother. "You should have let me die," Sam gritted out. "I wouldn't want to live if it came down to this." _

"_You shut your mouth! I'm trying to show you why, Sam. But you'll never understand and I can't make you understand. I remember the world without you, and that's no place I wanna live." _

_Sam leaned against the car. "You think because you remember my being born that you can't live without me, right? Because Dad made you promise?" _

"_Yahtzi." _

_Sam looked at his brother, tears in his eyes, "Well I don't remember a time without you in it, so how the fuck do you think it'll be easier for me to live without you?" he asked. Sam knew he didn't have an answer when Dean set his jaw and looked away, defeated. "I wanted to give you a nice holiday and you seemed happy with the baby…and I'm sorry, I ruined it, but Dean…" _

"_Social Services is coming to get her in the morning," Dean interjected. "They said a lot of good people want to adopt her. So maybe this does end happy." He paused and bumped Sam playfully with his shoulder. "It was a good New Year's, Sammy. The best." _

"_And last, right?" _

_Sam could see stubbornness flare in the strong line of his shoulders and the ghost of a deviant smirk on his lips. "God willing."_

_This time, Sam didn't stop himself from punching him. _

"_SAMMY!" _Bobby shouted_. "SAM!" _

Sam came back to the shaking of the table and the melodic shattering of glass, to Bobby's face bright with shock and to his own anger, both from the wintry New Year in Michigan heightened by his own maddening grief. Sam's head throbbed to the same rhythm as the shaking of the table. Dumbfounded, he glanced down to see the silverware vibrating and Bobby's porcelain plate splinter before cracking down the center. His anger had become that tangible, telepathic punch just like it had all of those years ago. He inhaled and exhaled slowly and it stopped like he'd blown out a candle.

Bobby sat speechless across from him, face splattered with steak sauce.

"What in all blazes was that?"

_Me_, Sam thought with an unsettling spark of pride.

The waitress ran up and began clearing the table and blotting up the mess. She apologized, profusely, comped their bill when Bobby put on a grand show about crazy fault lines and the drilling the next town over. Sam knew she had no idea what had happened. Sam glanced out the window again and the sight catapulted him out of his chair and into the heat of the day. There were three men, sporting Mohawks and tattoos, admiring the Impala.

Sam, blooding boiling, stalked up to the biggest of the group until they were inches apart. "Get the fuck away from the car," Sam gritted out in a menacing, gravelly tone. His unused voice made him sound frightening to his own ears.

The younger, shorter man stepped back, hands up in the air in mock surrender. "I was just admiring your wheels, man. Slick ride. It's a '69, right?" He was cocksure and smug and sipped from his beer.

Sam watched him with hooded eyes as he pulled from bottle, then deliberately moved to set it on the right fender of Dean's beloved car. The bottom of the glass barely brushed the paint before Sam socked the motherfucker in the neck. The man made a guttural noise, careening forward, and Sam kneed him in the face, and kicked him in the balls when he hit dirt. The other two attacked simultaneously and Sam wanted to laugh as he took them down in a way that would have made Dean wince. Normally, he fought efficiently, cleanly. His goal was domination and defense. Now, Sam, the vicious part of him, wanted to inflict pain. He knocked out teeth, broke bones, and forgot about mercy. It happened in less than a minute and a fog of dust. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam saw two more bikers running up to join the fray, and a gunmetal glint coming from the man on his left. He clotheslined him, using his own momentum to launch him into the air and then the ground. In a study of fluid movement, Sam snatched the gun out of his belt in mid-air, cocked it and trained it on the left eye of the last man standing, who immediately froze. Snarling, Sam shook his head in a silent warning. The person at blinking into the barrel of a gun was just a kid, all young eyes and unconcealed terror. Sam waved him off with the flick of the gun, and the kid bolted, kicking up curls of dust behind him.

17


	3. Chapter 3

Thanks again for the reviews. I really appreciate them! There is one more part after this one.

**In This Part**: Sammy learns he's more like his brother than he ever thought.

Bobby dragged Sam in the house by the collar of his shirt. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" Bobby ranted with cloying disgust.

Sam scoured the cabinets, fridge and cubbies for booze. His head pounded and he felt the itchy drag of restlessness all over his skin. An hour of sobriety and Sam nearly killed four people. He found a fifth of Jack Daniels buried beneath the oranges and apples of the ridiculous fruit bowl Bobby put on the table. He sagged into a chair and drained the bottle.

"You've pulled some crazy shennagians in your life, Sam, but never anything as reckless as that! You could have killed someone. You could have killed yourself!"

Sam's eyes flickered to Bobby.

"Oh that got your attention, huh? You tryin' to get to the pit anyway possible, right?" He pushed himself off the wall and snatched the bottle from him. He tossed it backwards and didn't blink when it shattered against the wall. "I don't know what to do anymore, Sam."

Sam buried his head in his hands. Nothing, not even the Devil's Gate, had managed the stump Bobby Singer, but he had and that made him sick to his stomach.

"Talk to me, Sam. Say anything." Sam didn't and Bobby smacked him on the back of the head and sat down.

Bobby placed his gun Sam stole on the table. "If you're so intent on killin' yourself, then I can't stop you. Blow your brains out. Make Dean's death worth friggin' pointless. But I'm not leavin'. There's nothing you can do that will make me abandon you, boy. I watched your brother do the same thing when you died..."

Sam tuned Bobby out and picked up the gun. He was surprised Bobby would give it to him loaded. It looked like a solution forged of metal and gunpowder. He could put it in his mouth, as he'd done before, and end the pain, but Bobby was right about one thing: Dean offered himself up to save Sam and he already knew he couldn't and wouldn't pull the trigger. But Sam had learned something important on that hot summer day: his anger was useful.

Sam ejected the magazine and put the gun back on the table. He looked at Bobby who deflated with relief, but the sadness was still there.

"You're actin' just like him, you know?"

Sam lifted his eyebrows and grizzled, "you say that like it's a bad thing."

**

_When Sam was a kid he was obsessed with Superman comics. He'd pour over them for hours in the back of the Impala, the sun on his shoulders, America rolling by. It wasn't that he was captivated by Superman's bravery or his adventures. He wasn't even interested in Lois Lane. Sam loved Clark Kent. It was Kal-el's way of blending into a world he didn't fit in. He had a home and a job and friends that he could call his own. And while Sam loved Dean and his dad, and how sometimes traveling in the Impala was like a never-ending camping trip, what Sam wanted the most was what he couldn't have. At Stanford, he'd crafted a new Sam Winchester, the person he would have been if life was remotely fair. His friends all thought he was a mild-mannered Midwesterner who loved to read, swim in the ocean, the occasional party, and avoided confrontation at all costs. It was Sam's ode to Superman's Clark Kent. _

_A twenty-year-old Sam sat in the Stanford library, flanked by books and quiet. The cavernous building was predictably deserted on Saturday nights, which was his favorite time to study. Sam, who worked as a waiter at an exclusive café in Malibu an a RA on top of his full class schedule, tried to enjoy the rare moment of tranquility. But sometimes, usually when the moon was full or the Santa Ana winds blew in, Sam got restless and agitated, like a prisoner in a cage. Hunters thrived on adrenaline, and as much as Sam knew he wasn't a hunter, he needed an injection of adrenaline and some reckless fun. Usually, he'd run it off, pounding around the campus in the dark until his feet were blistered and his muscles buzzed overuse. He'd head into L.A. and hustle rich kids out of their money at trendy pool halls—anything to get that feeling of invulnerability and unparalleled freedom. Then, he'd think about Dean, missing him more and more since as the years passed and since he wasn't there to share in his victory. People always said they were just alike, but Sam knew they were monumentally different. It was a devastating realization as a child and a lonely one as a man. Sam thought Dean would be proud of his little brother's newfound wild streak._

_Sam could barely sit still. His eyes glossed over the words of his anthropology textbook, and his leg bounced under the table. Sam tapped his pencil against his binder, a steadily-increasing rhythm, until he threw it across the room and shoved his books onto the floor. The pall of Sam's chronic restlessness had returned after just two weeks. He raked his fingers through his floppy brown hair, and wished he could do his research and write his paper, but concentrating was an impossibility. The silence just intensified his already mounting agitation. He packed up his things, and hoped breaking into the Olympic-sized pool for a swim would be enough. His phone rang as he jogged across the campus. "What?" he snapped never breaking his stride. _

"_Sam, it's me." Bijou whispered. "Can you come get me? I need you to come get me now." _

_Bijou was Sam's ex-girlfriend. They'd dated for his an entire year before it fizzled into an oddly dependent friendship. She was tough as nails and was the only person at Stanford that knew the most about Sam's past for she'd been there for his nightmares and even found the strange presents Dean left in his room throughout the years (a box of throwing knives, stripper flyers from Atlantic City , a bag of rock salt). _

_Sam was struck by the fearful tremble of her voice. "What's wrong?"_

"_I'm at some shady ass bar in L.A. I'm stranded. Sam, please."_

_Sam cursed and broke out in a sprint. "I'm coming, just call me back in two minutes, okay?" _

_She wasn't the type of girl to ask for help unless the situation was dangerous. She was as notoriously stubborn as he was, which was what sparked their attraction. He ran to one of the dorm parking lots and darted up and down the rows of cars, searching. He found a rusted out Saab that wouldn't have an alarm or a computerized ignition system, and broke the back window with three measured blows from his elbow. He popped the locks and hotwired it in less than a minute. He was already driving when his phone rang again. "Address." He prompted. She gave it to him and he sped down the Pacific Coast Highway ._

"_What happened?" He asked._

_He could hear the noise in the background. The bass of the music almost overtook Bijou's voice. "I'm mortified enough, Sam."_

"_Why? It's just me," Sam replied, weaving through traffic. _

"_I went on a date," she began, "and it ended badly. That's all you get." _

_Sam stomped on the gas pedal, growing angrier. "I'm almost there." _

_She didn't answer, but Sam stayed on the line. _

_The bar was in downtown L.A. on a dark street flanked by warehouses and factories with an alley entrance. Sam slipped in with a group of kids to avoid being carded and filed impatiently through the crowd. Bijou's phone died fifteen minutes before he'd arrived and he had no idea where she was. His blue eyes searched the face of every black-haired female in the place, but he found nothing. He cracked his knuckles and forced himself to think like his friend. It finally struck him and he went to the ladies room door, cutting in front of a line of women. They didn't seem fazed he boldly entered the bathroom. One woman, a leggy bottle blonde, slipped him his number. _

"_Jewels," he called tentatively. "Bijou."_

_The farthest from the door clicked and she poked her head out. Her dark eyes found his immediately. He wasn't sure of what to do or what had happened, so he stuffed his hands in his pockets and offering her a soft smile. Bijou eyed the other women before closed the door again. "I need your sweatshirt." _

_Sam peeled it off and held it over the stall without a word. He was tall enough that he could see over the edge of the rickety bathroom door. Bijou pulled his sweatshirt over her the purple dress to cover the ripped strap and the puckered scratches marring the supple brown skin of her neck and chest. Sam smoldered as she blotted her puffy eyes with her fingers and tried to tame her wild hair studded with dirt and sand. He bit the inside of his cheek and tried to look calm when Bijou finally left the stall. The ruffled hem of her dress was stained with dark splotches of blood from her skinned knees. _

_Bravely, she looked at him with a dry face and haunted eyes. "Thanks for coming." _

"_If you wanted to take me out on a date, you just had to ask," he said with a wink. _

_Bijou lips turned upwards in a tiniest of smile, and Sam's stomach fluttered. She was the first girl he'd ever really loved, and that would never change. He was surprised when she latched on to him, arms around his waist, body pressed against his. "You're shaking." _

"_I'm cold," she lied. _

_Bijou was barely five-two and his arms came around her and he bent down to whisper in her ear. She smelled like a man who wasn't Sam. "Who do I have to kill?" _

"_I took care of it." She mumbled into his chest. _

"_Like I taught you?" _

_She laughed wetly, "kick to the balls, then I ran." _

"_Good girl." _

_They left the bar and walked hand-in-hand back down the dark alleys. "Bijou, I need a name." _

"_You don't, Sam, let it go. Just leave it alone." _

_Sam chuckled. "You think he'd beat me up, huh?" _

_Bijou sighed. "I'm not a freakin' damsel. I don't need to be rescued." _

"_And what exactly am I doing now?" Sam replied. _

_Her face crumbled and she pushed him aside and tried to walk down the street alone. _

_Sam ran to catch up with her._ _"Look that wasn't fair. I'm just…" Sam gently grabbed her elbow. He felt crazed, but was trying to reign it in, even when he didn't want to. Sometimes, Sam liked losing control. "Do you even get what could have happened? I know you don't want to tell me, but it's obvious to me. He took you somewhere secluded and tried to have sex with you whether you wanted to or not. And you had to fight him off. No one does that to you. EVER!" Bijou flinched at the sound of his voice. Sam knew she'd never seen him remotely angry. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…just…give me a name. I'm going to find out anyway." _

"_For your own good, Sam, no." _

_Bijou eyed the vehicle suspiciously and raised an eyebrow. Sam flashed a mega-watt grin he'd learned from Dean. "I borrowed it from a friend." _

_** _

_Sam was pathologically ambitious. When he'd set a goal, he'd work doggedly until he accomplished it, no matter how much he had to sacrifice. Three years ago, he wanted a normal life. And he did whatever it took to achieve that, even though he was disowned by his father and estranged from his brother. As much as Sam loved Stanford, he wasn't always sure it was worth such a hefty price. He hadn't seen Dean in three years, and hadn't even spoken to his father since he'd left for Stanford. He'd grown almost a foot, lost his virginity, made the Dean's list, and made real, true friends without ever having guidance from his dad and brother. _

_When Sam decided whomever hurt Bijou needed a few bones broken, he took to it with his trademark focused intensity. It took Sam less than an hour to find out that Bijou had gone out with Marcus Carmichael, one of the upcoming stars on the baseball team. Marcus' mother was best friends with the Chancellor of Stanford University. Sam understood why Bijou refused to tell him. Marcus was part of the sprawling campus elite. Both of their scholarships could be revoked if anyone so much as badmouthed Marcus. _

_Sam noticed Bijou's sullen, defeated demeanor and the healing bruises, and he didn't care. _

_Sam charged through the expansive Malibu house, encased in the marble and ostentatious glass windows that framed the picturesque private beach. He weaved through the partygoers, bass pulsing in his chest. He asked people where Marcus was, and he followed their directions, bounding up the stairs and into a game room. Marcus, a tall, well-muscled all-America baseball player, was behind the bar, serving drinks. Sam leaned against the wall, biding his time, a predator sizing up his prey. No one noticed him because he was quiet and knew how to disappear or blend with a crowd. The observation was important. Sam estimated his height, weight, found out that he was left-handed. _

_He ventured over to the bar. "Hey, can I get a drink?" He said jovially. "Wow, this is nice! May I?" Despite, Marcus' objections, Sam smoothly took one of the autographed baseball bats off its mount on the wall and flipped it deftly in his hands. "Marcus, right?" Sam already knew it was Marcus. He knew his credit card number, his best friends, his class schedule, and more importantly, about his cocaine and gambling habits. _

_Marcus smiled and slid Sam a Jack and Coke. "Depends on who you are." _

_Sam knocked it back. The lighthearted expression fell from his face as he cut his eyes over to the athlete. "I'm a friend of Bijou's." _

_Sam waited for Marcus's eyes to shift in wary recognition as Sam twirled the bat under his arm. "Oh, man, hey. She…" _

"_Be very careful what you say." Sam threatened, leaning in. "Sticks and stones and all," he tapped the bat against the rail of the bar. _

"_Hey, Sam, you're here! I thought you were a mirage, man!" Tony crooned, approaching the group. "You never party, especially this close to finals." _

"_I'm talking to Marcus, Tony. I'll catch you later." _

_Tony was clearly drunk and oblivious to Sam's glowering stare locked on Marcus. "Nah, man, the gang's all here. Let's have a drink." _

"_Tony, you don't get it. Your boy, Sammy, wants to kick my ass. Ain't that right, Sammy?" _

"_That's right." Sam nodded. _

_Tony laughed exuberantly. "You got nothin' to worry about. Sam's a lover, not a fighter. He's harmless." He clapped him on the back. _

_Sam's eye twitched when Marcus seemed to relax and his face flushed with arrogance. "Look, Sammy, you know who my mother's friends with, everyone does. So unless you and your little Affirmative Action girlfriend want to be without a scholarship, I'd beg off. 'Kay." _

_Sam dropped the bat and bodily hauled Marcus over the bar and onto the floor. The room erupted in screams and broken glass and Tony and a few others scrambled out of the way. Sam bent down and patted Marcus on the cheek. "You really don't want to be givin' me orders right now." _

"_Sam, what the hell, man?" _

"_You need to go now, Tony." Sam said, suddenly aware that no one was leaving. _

"_Have you lost your mind?!" He pulled Sam off Tony. _

_Marcus blindsided Sam with a kick to the cheekbone, launching Sam into the dark wood of the bar with splintering force. Sam looked at him, the copper of his own blood coating his tongue. He smiled with bloody teeth. He was on his feet in seconds, blocking punches and throwing his own, unchecked by rage that had been building for three days. Marcus grabbed the bat Sam discarded and Sam laughed. "Don't pick up a weapon you don't know how to use," Sam said, blocking Marcus' inexperienced swings. _

_He deflected another swing, leveled Marcus with an uppercut and took the bat, using it to knock him in the ribs. Muscle memory took over and he threw a punishingly hard right to Marcus' face. Sam winced when he felt the cartilage pop. He turned with his own momentum, and used the bat to sweep him off his feet. Marcus hit the ground like a tree. Sam seethed down at the barely conscious athlete. "If you put your nasty, rapist hands on any other girl, you won't see me coming. Do you understand me?" _

_Marcus writhed in pain. _

_Sam kicked at his legs. "I can't hear you. Groan or cry or whimper, somethin.'" _

"_You're done here." Marcus gurgled. _

_Sam smiled smugly. "Thought you'd say that. I got some pictures of you snorting something some stuff, it's white and powdery. I'm also really good friends with your bookie. Don't think Mommy'll approve of you betting on games, huh? So if you want that shiny pro ball career, you'll keep your mouth shut. Okay, well, I'm gonna go. Thanks for the hospitality." _

_Sam stepped over Marcus' prone body and passed Tony, who stumbled after him, whooping like a drunken fool. "That was some Jet-Li shit, man! Where the hell did you learn that?" _

_Sam smirked, "my brother." _

_** _

_Sam slipped into the shadows in the corner of the stifling Arizona motel room that smelled faintly of mildew and onions. He froze, holding his breath when Dean, opened the door, shucking off his shirt and tossing it on the bed. Even in the lowlight, Sam could see that Dean had grown considerably since he'd last seen him. He was more muscular, and finally growing into that babyface of his. Sam also realized that he was at least six inches taller. He moved purposely and wasn't surprised when he heard the reflexive click of a gun and Dean's gruff voice. "I saw you before I got in the room, Ginormo." _

_Sam smothered a laugh and held up his hands, showing he had no weapon. He moved forward, but kept his face hidden. _

"_Get your lumberjack ass out of my room. I don't swing that way, pal." _

_Sam stepped closer to the gun and swung his arm around, knocking it out of Dean's hand. Stunned, it took Dean less than a second to regain his barrings and fight back. They spared with the patented Winchester intensity, connecting punches, and meaning it. When Dean barked a giddy laugh, Sam knew he'd figured out it was him. They fought for ten minutes, using everything in the room to subdue the other. Finally, Dean used the pole of the room lamp to trip Sam, and he crashed hard to the floor below. "You're a little rusty there, college boy." _

"_You're a little short there, gramps." _

_Dean hoisted Sam off the floor and cursed when Sam rose to his full height. "Holy shit. What'd they feed you out there in California? Miracle-Gro?" _

"_Organic veggies, man." _

_Dean clicked on the light from the only unbroken lamp and stared Sam, taking in his height and the dark bruise circling his right eye. "What happened to your face, kid? Were you in a stampede to get the last copy of 'War and Peace'?" _

"_I'll tell you later." _

"_Gimme the short version…and it better not end with you getting your ass kicked." _

"_Had someone to take care of. And I'll probably get kicked out of school…" _

"_That sounds more like me than you." _

_Sam grinned. "Seems like I'm more of a Winchester than we thought." _

_Dean didn't pretend to hide his fraternal pride. "Aww, shucks." Dean flicked back Sam's baseball crap to examine his face. "Tell me it was worth the shiner." _

"_He fucked with my girl." _

_Dean whistled. "Oh, so you broke his legs?" _

"_Face and ribs." _

_His older brother clapped him on the shoulder. "I taught you well, Sammy." _

_Sam looked at Dean with a serious, loaded stare. "That you did." _

_Unexpectedly, Dean closed the space between them and gave him a tight hug. _

_Sam stumbled backwards, and hugged him back and felt whole for the first time in three years. "I missed you, too, Dean." _

"_Shuttup," Dean countered, but still held on. "Why are you here? Need money or somethin'? You need help with that…school situation?" _

"_Dean, no. Wait, you FORGOT?" Sam hollered, shoving him. "What's tomorrow?" _

"_May 2__nd__…OMG, NO WAY ! Sammy!" Dean nearly leapt in the air. "Are you serious?!" _

"_I can't believe you forgot, Dean." Sam frowned as Dean darted around the room, packing his guns and knives, dob kit and clothes, laughing. "From the time, I was thirteen, all I heard about was how we were going to spend my 21__st__ birthday in Vegas, and now it is here…I blew off classes, studying for finals. I steal a car—the second time in a week, mind you—and come to find your ass—which is near impossible—and you fuckin' forgot!" _

"_Turning 21 is a Winchester Rite of Passage. I've had this shit planned since you were fifteen. I just never thought you'd…" _

"_Come back?" Sam finished. "Dean, I'll always come back. It was dad who drew the line in the sand, not me." _

_Dean threw his haphazardly packed luggage at Sam. "California made you soft, man. I got…" he looked at Sam. _

"_Three days." _

"…_three days to toughen you up." _

"_Good, well I have twenty hours to tell you all about Stanford and my classes," Sam said, backpedaling out of the room. "It's going to be a fun ride to Vegas for you, buddy."_

"_Dude, you can tell me that when I need to get to sleep. All I need to know now is if you're still a card-carrying member of the Virgin Squad, because if you are, I'm going to need another day." _

"_Of course not!" _

"_Freshman year?" _

_Sam grimaced. "Sophomore." _

_They walked towards the Impala gleaming like a jewel in the sunshine. "Last time you had got laid?" _

_Sam was horrified, but strangely proud. "Right before I left." He blushed when he thought of Bijou's soft skin and the kiss she leveled him with when she'd slipped into his dorm room as he packed._

"_That's my boy!" Dean hooted. _

_He rushed to change the subject. "I'm finally moving off campus this summer. Tony and his friend are getting an apartment. I'll be living with a girl." Sam said as he slid into the front seat of the Impala. He rubbed the weathered dashboard and the smooth leather. "Man, I missed this car." _

"_Livin' with a girl?" Dean started the engine and Metallica boomed through the speakers. "She hot?" _

_Sam shrugged. "She's Tony's friend. I never met her, some girl named Jess. Are we really gonna have to listen to this all the way to Vegas." Sam teased. _

_Dean mumbled something that Sam couldn't hear over the music, but he picked out the word, "cakehole." _

_Dean tore out of the parking lot. The hot Arizona air rushed through the opened windows. He cranked the music and leaned back, happy. _

The happy memories—Dean obliterated in Vegas, the sheer elation on his face when he bought Sam his first lapdance; Dean's shock when Sam stole a pompus businessman's ten grand in chips—felt like Dean dying all over again. Sam huddled in Bobby's junkyard, somewhere labyrinth of smashed, rusted cars and eerie moonlight. He heard Dean's laughter within him, golden and intangible, which made it haunting and excruciating. Something he would never hear again. He wanted it to stop, but it continued, fueling the rage within him like adding gasoline to a bonfire.

When it was Sam's life on the line, Dean had abandoned his own morality and happily offered up his life to ensure that Sam would live, regardless of Sam's emotions or wishes. Sam hadn't done the same. He'd let the hellhounds tear his brother apart. Even when he knew what needed to be done, he fell in line and cowardly obeyed his older brother. He'd denied the power inside of him. Sam cracked, split open by anger and hate and grief so intense it rivaled any poison, any drug, any pain. He'd failed the one person in his life who could and DID sacrifice everything for him. He screamed and writhed, and finally, accepted his fraternal failure like the inescapable burden it was. He filled that hole Dean's death had left with all of the dark, nefarious things he'd repressed since childhood. And let it galvanize him to act. He tore back into Bobby's house, packed his things. As he stomped down the aisle of the junkyard to the Impala, the windows of the rusted cars shattered, spiderwebbing down the center before raining down cutting confetti.

What Sam couldn't do because of his grief, he could do now that he was consumed by ire and focused on grand-scale revenge. He wanted Lilith dead. He wanted to rid the world of all evil. He'd do it for Dean, like Dean, by any means necessary. He partnered with Ruby. He drank her blood like the elixir it was. He felt his body change; the sinister slithering beneath his skin, tentacles stretching and knotting around his heart. He waged war against evil and fought night and day. He'd abandoned motels and squatted in houses and shacks. His life became a disconnected existence of tragedy and triumph; good and evil; blood and sweat.

Until he'd opened the door one day in Pontiac, Illinois, and found Dean on the other side. And the bottom dropped out of his world for the second time, and Sam willingly took the fall.


	4. Chapter 4

**NOTE:** I'd suggest skimming the beginning before reading this part, but it's not necessary.

Please let me know who you think it turned out. Again, thanks so much for reading! I really enjoyed sharing this story with everyone.

For a month, Sam continued using his powers without telling Dean. He'd felt like his brother was a mirage or a cruel joke or a trickster, even though he could handle silver knives and drank a few belts of Holy Water with his breakfast (Sam knew Dean was having just as hard of a time believing that angels needed him for anything. He was waiting for the ultimate punchline too). Sam couldn't let go of the grief, even though Dean was beside him again, because he knew how easily Dean could be taken away, how easy his life could revert back to the living purgatory it once was, and he wouldn't survive it a second time. He wore the rage and hatred like a second skin, and he couldn't go back now. It was the best way to keep Dean alive.

When Dean discovered his demonic secret, Sam felt nothing but shame and remorse so profound, it couldn't be expressed. The words stopped at his throat, tethered to that part inside of him that wasn't human. He didn't deserve to have Dean back. He deserved to go to Hell and suffer like Dean had for all he'd done, for all he'd made his brother do. In the end, he could only promise Dean and himself that he was done with his powers, even though Sam using it now was as habitual as reloading a gun or throwing a punch.

The anniversary of Mary and Jessica's death came with the rising of Sam Hain. Sam had done a lot of underhanded, immoral things in his life, but he'd never felt dirtier than he did when Dean watched him telekinetically kill Sam Hain, but part of him, that was growing daily, relishing in the lethal power he could create with just his mind. He loved the hot spiraling of pain and energy that radiating from the top of his head down through his fingers. But he hated the way Dean looked at him like he could finally see what his brother really was.

When it was over, Sam and Dean separated, repelled by the tension and the weight of the losing another seal. After Uriel left, Sam drank. He hadn't had more than an occasional beer since Dean had come back, but the demons were too close and his head still pounded from all of the sheer force it took to exorcise Sam Hain. If Uriel was right, and Dean remembered Hell, Sam knew he would break. Dean entered the room, world-weary and Sam saw the haunted, tortured look in his eyes, and felt his resolve splinter. Dean glanced at Sam in the corner of the room, drinking in the dark. He swiped a plastic cup from the bathroom and sat down next to him. Sam poured him a shot.

"I'm sorry about Jess." Dean said as he had every November 2nd for three years.

"Thanks," Sam said.

They toasted to their mother and finished the bottle.

About a week later, Sam started feeling sick. The headache he'd had from putting down Sam Hain never subsided. It was an annoying, constant twinge behind his eyes, and but now was coupled with a jitteriness that rivaled anything he'd dealt with at Stanford. But just two days later, he was exhausted and achy. He didn't say a word to Dean, because he was already angry and disappointed with him.

They were in Texas, where it was suffocatingly hot even in November. He leaned against the car as Dean moved around to the trunk, arming himself with his pearl-handled 45mm and a flask before they headed into a diner for breakfast. Sam was still mesmerized by his brother doing mundane tasks like ejecting the magazine in his weapon or gargling in the morning. He didn't even pretend he wasn't staring. Dean rolled his shoulders under the scrutiny and was about to crack some smart ass comment, when Sam folded from a violent cramp of nausea. He sprinted into the alley, a slip of hot brick and precious shade, and threw up.

"Sammy?!" Dean's voice was tight with concern as he followed him in the alley.

Sam could only wave him off before he vomited again, gagging into the dirt.

"That…is a lot of puke." Dean said, shockingly amused.

Sam socked him in the leg and wiped mouth.

"You alright?"

"Peachy." He grunted and tried to stand up, but was incredibly lightheaded and dizzy. He flagged back against pavement.

"How about the truth this time?" Dean placed the back of his hand on Sam's forehead. "Son of a…you're burning up, Sam. Come on." He tried to help Sam stand up.

"I got it, I got it." Sam protested, arching away from Dean. He walked out of the alley on his own steam with Dean trailing behind him. "I'm just gonna walk back to the motel and crash. You go eat."

"Uh, no. It's 90 degrees out here. I'll give you a ride to the room."

"I'll be fine, Dean."

"I know, because I'm comin' with you." He insisted.

Sam was irritable and needed his own space. He hadn't functioned in civilized society—diners with perky waitresses and short stacks, soccer moms with their towheaded toddlers—since Dean had died, and it took a lot more effort than Sam remembered. More than that, Dean hadn't left him alone since Halloween. "I promise I won't go darkside while you're having your Pig 'N A Poke."

Dean regarded Sam as if he had sprouted fourteen heads. "I was going to have french toast." He gritted out, his tone barely concealing his anger.

"I just…need some breathing room. I need…"

"All you need right now is to get out of this heat. Let's go."

They rode to the hotel in silence. Sam slumped in the passenger seat, feeling more miserable by the minute. It felt like his body was rioting against him. Sam didn't blame it. The Impala didn't have an air conditioner, so Dean had rolled down all the windows, but the air blowing in was hot and dry. And it made Sam even more nauseous. By the time they reached the hotel, Sam could barely find the strength to get out of the car, but he did anyway, digging into his last reserves.

The room, with its stained carpet and peeling wallpaper, was blissfully cold and they both sighed as they entered. Sam climbed in the closest bed.

"How long have you been sick?"

"…dunno, a week…it was a just a headache.."

Sam watched Dean mentally track back and he seemed even more concerned, but didn't speak it. "You have to tell me these things."

Sam waved him off. "Why? There was nothing you could do."

They lapsed into a loaded silence. Sam's teeth chattered as Dean found some Tylenol and got him a soda from the vending machine. It was absurdly wonderful to have Dean back, taking care of him like he did when he was four. Sam laughed when he produced an old mercury thermometer of their mother's and used it to his take his temperature. The smile fell from Dean's face when he held it up to the light. "It's over 102. That's not normal for you."

Sam snapped, "Well I'm not exactly normal, am I?"

It was true. Save for the rare sniffles as a child and growing pains as a teenager, Sam had always been remarkably healthy.

Dean threw his hands up in the air. "I…I just…I don't know who you are anymore, Sam. You used to play Dr. Sammy and try to get me lay on the couch and spill my feelings and that was BEFORE I went to Hell. You were the broody little brother who overshared his feelings all the freakin' time." Dean started, pacing. "Now, getting two words out of you is like getting Britney Spears to hit a proper note. You hide huge secrets from me. What the hell, man?"

"You have no idea what I've been through, Dean, but I can't even complain about it because you were…dead. In Hell. So just…leave it alone."

"Don't shutdown, Sam. I just…I know this was hard on you, but I played the hand I had. I just never thought you'd become like this," Dean confessed.

"What do you think would happen to me, Dean? You think I'd be happy to live when you died?" Sam was sickened by the very suggestion and he felt the metallic tinge on his tongue. Dean saw the panicked expression on his face and snatched a garbage can, holding it as Sam retched. He breathed for a second and nodded to Dean that he was okay. "I can't do this now, man, please." He went into the bathroom and got drenched a hand towel in cold water. Sam was startled by his reflection, he was pale, downright ghostly, except for the dark rings around his eyes. He could barely stand upright without getting dizzy. He shuffled back to bed and hoped he could sleep it off.

"Just…tell me one thing you did while I was gone. Just one, and I'll leave you alone."

Sam buried his face in the wet cloth and muffled a groan of frustration. "I went to Disneyland."

"Sammy…" Dean sat down on the other bed. "We were apart for four months. I wanna know what you did. What you killed. Who you banged, even?"

He whisked the cloth off his face and twisted it into a knot. He stared at his older brother for a long moment. Dean was faced was open and earnest, and he was geniunely interested in how Sam lived while he was dead. Sam relented as Dean knew he would. "I exorcised some demons that were possessing an entire family. I did it the…old fashioned way—a lot of screaming and holy water—and they all died. That was after the six-year-old girl shot me."

His older brother's face cleared of all emotion as it always did when Dean was trying to swallow the gruesomeness of the supernatural.

It was the job that haunted him. The family had been possessed by Ingehoff demons—a nasty creatures bent on causing humans nothing but carnage and mayhem. They preyed small, connected groups of humans, like families or co-workers, and made them fight and trick each other until all of their human hosts were dead. By the time he'd gotten there, the mother had gravely wounded the father, and the kids had ganged up on the family pets. After subduing and exorcising them, he'd given the youngest one, a four-year-old boy CPR until he'd nearly passed out, and knew he'd needed all his strength to save his own life. Sam dragged himself, bleeding from the hole in his thigh, to the Impala, where he cauterized the wound with the Impala's cigarette lighter in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding.

When he didn't have nightmares about Dean, he dreamt of that little boy.

"Anything else you want to know?" he asked.

Sam didn't miss the tremble of Dean's chin, but he shrugged and said, "I'll listen to whatever you want to tell me, Sammy."

There was too much and it was too ugly. Sam flopped on the bed, miserable and remembering everything he wanted to forget. He sagged against the pillows, coughing and sick with more than just the fever. He responded with the loudest thought, the truth he'd wanted to tell him for months. "I let you die," Sam confessed.

Dean moved to the foot of the bed, and gently pulled off Sam's boots. "It was my choice, Sam, and I don't regret it."

**

Sam jolted awake with a searing pain in his head and deep in his bones. He stared at the unfamiliar ceiling, stucco and water-stained, and tried to gain his bearings. All he could remember was nothing but a string grisly dreams blurring with a hardhearted reality. He had visions and echoing screams in his head of dying children coupled with Dean's death and the growl of hellhounds. He could hear Bobby blaming him and walking along the ever-growing line of all the people he'd loved and lost: Mary, John, Jess, Madison, Ash, Andy, Ava, Dean. He had vividly clear images of Dean forcing pills down his throat and tying him up in a net of blankets. Sam couldn't distinguish what was real and what wasn't as if his life was becoming as bleak as his nightmares. He pushed himself up and whimpered at the pain it caused. His long limbs were leadened with illness and weak from dehydration, judging on the aching dryness of his throat. He braced himself against the nightstand and gingerly stood. He knew he wouldn't be able to make it to the bathroom for water, because just walking the three feet between the two beds felt like trekking across the Grand Canyon. Dean was asleep, swathed in a blanket. Sam slumped on the mattress and shook Dean's shoulder. "Dean, hey, wake u..." His voice was a scratchy murmur.

And it all came back, like a flash of cataclysmic white light: Sam discovering Dean's corpse, Dean's death, the drinking, the relentless hunting, the hate. He fell onto the carpet, making sounds that were guttural and pained. He crawled backwards until he slammed into a wall, doorknob in his back. His heart thudded in his chest, hard and fast, and he couldn't get air into his lungs. Dean was dead. He'd never been resurrected by angels. The entire sequence was a disgusting, awful hallucination just like he'd imagined. The room was suddenly filled with light, and Sam hollered, covering his eyes. He was back in that dirt-floor shack in Pontiac with Dean's corpse and a gun he couldn't use. He was back in those clothes that were rigid with Dean's blood.

"You get away from him, Bobby," Sam screamed. He grabbed the nearest object and hurled it at him. "You don't touch him!" He threw a shoe and a clock radio, a coaster and a lamp. Two hands grabbed his arms and he fought them off with quickly dwindling strength. "You're not burning him! If you touch his body, I swear to God…" He cried, "Bobby, please. Just let me get him back. I can do it."

"SAMMY! SAM!" It wasn't Bobby's gravelly voice. It was Dean's deep baritone, strong and lively.

Sam froze, unnaturally chilled by the telltale electric sensation of a ghost entering the room. Suddenly, he was gaping at Dean's terrified face inches from his own. He stared at him for a long, feverish moment before he everything spiraled into black.

He woke up to a piercing coldness on his back. It slithered up his neck and battered the base of his brain, and Sam wondered if he'd turn to ice. Dean's voice was a squeaky rumble above him: "Uriel, I swear if you're punishing him, I'll rip every holy feather off your wings and shove them up your ass."

Sam licked his dry lips and tried to make sense of what he saw: the castors of the bed dotted with pieces of broken lamps and a cracked telephone. "Sammy?" Dean called in a particularly high voice. Sam knew he was scared, and that always struck him as strange. "Sam, come on. Look at me." He pleaded.

Sam felt the icepack Dean had pressed to his neck jiggle and he hissed at the cold. Sam was in a heap on the floor, but his upper body was pillowed on Dean's legs. Head in his lap. He coughed raggedly and felt his entire body rattle from the force. He winced at the brightness of the room, the weight in his chest, the pain all over. His eyes fluttered closed again. He was so tired.

"No, you need to stay awake." Dean shook him roughly.

His world tumbled end over end and he was once against staring at the stucco ceiling. "Drink it, Sammy, please." He felt the rim of a plastic bottle hit his teeth before his mouth was flooded with the wet, sugary taste of artificial berries. He swallowed on instinct and felt the liquid track down to his empty belly. "Just a little more." Dean said and gave him more Gatorade.

He swallowed, forcing it down. Sam gawked up at Dean. "You're not dead." His voice was so soft Dean had crane his neck to hear him.

Dean shook his head and grabbed his hand, squeezing it. "No, Sam, I'm not." He wedged it under his neck again. "You've been really sick, Sam. I can't keep your fever down."

Sam frowned, trying to recall being sick. His mind was a muddled mess, festooned with cobwebs. Nothing made sense. "I can't…think."

"It's the fever, Sam. It's just the fever." Dean promised. His eyes were glassy and wet, and he looked as exhausted as Sam felt. "Can you tell me what happened? What did you see before you passed out?"

"You were lying just like after you…died. Bobby wanted to burn…I wouldn't let him…I wanted to go get you. In Hell. I thought I could get you…" He babbled. "I couldn't pull the trigger though."

"God, Sam. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. We're going to the hospital right now." Dean said hurriedly. He snatched a pillow off the nearest bed and propped it under Sam's head and gently scooted out from under him. Sam was pliable and helpless. "I'm gonna get the car. I'll be right back." He got up and tried to walk away.

"…no." Sam shook his head slightly and the room distorted and blurred. He reached out and snagged the denim of Dean's pants. "…stay here."

Dean knelt down in front of him. "What is it?"

Sam didn't remember what he wanted to say. Dean sat down, and waited, humoring him. "I killed a gremlin," Sam said. "…silvertipped crossbow. Afterwards, I just…wanted to tell you, and I couldn't. I missed you so much…it nearly killed me, so I changed. I had to…to survive."

"I know, Sam." A tear spilled over Dean's cheek and he nodded, grim, but proud. He grabbed Sam's hand and held on. "But I'm here now, Sam. I'm not going anywhere."

Sam tried to smother the tears, but he couldn't. He could handle the angels and the demonic powers and the apocalypse, if that meant Dean was back. He knew he needed stamp down his unabashed relief that had taken months to absorb, because the only raw emotion Dean embraced was anger. But he was out of control again, and too weak to stop it. Dean was stoically silent, but rubbed his back with a patience Sam had forgotten he had. After a few minutes, Dean wiped Sam's face, and stood up. "We really need to go."

"…no hospital. I'm okay."

Dean lifted his eyebrows ruefully. "Oh, we're not going for you. After the heart attack you just gave me? I need defribulation or some kind of trauma counselor," Dean deadpanned. "My hair's white, isn't it?"

Sam smiled blearily, "…not yet." His entire body was trembling, quivering without his control.

"I'll be right back," Dean said and jogged out of the room before Sam could say anything else.

Sam tried to get up. He'd made it to his knees when Dean flew back in the room. The rumble of the Impala echoed from the parking lot. "Hey, hang on." Dean said and gently helped him stand. The color drained from Sam's face as the room smeared into string of blurry colors as he was pulled upright. "Can you make it? I can carry you," he offered with a cautious smirk.

He nodded and slung an arm around his brother's neck and leaned on him as they shuffled into the moonlight and the relentless heat. Dean grunted theatrically with Sam's weight. "This was a lot easier when you were fifteen, you big bastard." Sam knew he was carrying most of his weight. He was so weak his legs shook as he walked. Dean was still impressively strong.

Sam chuckled dryly and counted the steps to the car. "Little man talks big when I can't kick your ass."

"I think the fever fried your brain. You haven't taken me down yet, bitch."

Sam was downright giddy to reply, "Jerk."

The Impala grumbled and Dean tore down the highway, searching for the nearest hospital. He listened to the car's engine, felt the road beneath him. Dean was behind the wheel, flanked in moonlight. Sam shivered, not from illness, but from the exact opposite.

"You okay?" Dean asked. "Delirium or not, you can't puke in the car."

Sam turned on the stereo, and Styx pounded through the speakers. "Just keep driving, and I will be."


End file.
